Debar Sepatayim: An Ottoman Hebrew Chronicle from the Crimea (1683-1730). Written by Krymchak Rabbi David Lekhno

The fifty years between 1680-1730 were one of the most fascinating in the history of Europe and in Ottoman history. A period of coalitions and wars, climate changes, and natural disasters took place. This previously unpublished chronicle contains valuable information in various fields. It was written in Semi-Biblical Hebrew by a Jewish rabbi residing in the Crimean Peninsula, and includes insights on the political upheavals in the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman capital; the wars between the Ottomans, Habsburgs, Venetians, Circassians, Sefevids, and the Russians, which he vividly describes; Persia and the Caucasus; the fate of Jewish communities; epidemics and weather; and weapons and customs. The book, a historical mine that reads like a sweeping thriller, is now available in English for the first time.

About the Author

Dan Shapira is Full Professor at the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at Bar-Ilan University. An interdisciplinary historian and philologist, he is presently working on medieval and early modern Jewish minority communities, the Crimea, and the Khazars.

Yaron Ben-Naeh is Full Professor, Bernard Cherrick Chair in Jewish History in the Department of History of the Jewish People and Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University, and a researcher of Ottoman Jewry. He is chair of Misgav Yerushalayim-The Center for the Research of Sephardi Heritage.

Aviezer Tutian , Ph.d student at Bar-Ilan University.